PGE/DEM An Integrated Approach To Change Attitudes Of College Freshmen Toward Female Participation In SME&T

Board Of Trustees Of Illinois State University, Normal IL

Investigators

Abstract

Illinois State University will shape the awareness, attitudes and knowledge of all freshman students and their parents by enhancing learning about gender issues in STEM before and during the freshman year. The interventions will be conducted within three overlapping spheres -- the family context, the peer context, and the University's curricular and co-curricular structures. It is at the nexus of these three spheres that students make educational choices that affect their careers for decades. Within the family context, there will be a half-day or four-hour workshop that addresses gender equity in STEM, as part of the two-day Summer Orientation sessions for incoming 900 freshmen and their 1500 parents. All the 150 undergraduate advisors at the University will also participate in the workshop. Within the peer context, learning communities will be formed to provide a support group that nurtures freshmen females who express interest (or even mild enthusiasm) in STEM. The learning communities will be modeled on the existing Connections program at the University. Each learning community will consist of a maximum of 30 students (females and males), a science, mathematics, or technology professional on or off campus, who will serve as a role model, and a student leader (university junior or senior in one of the STEM fields) to help guide the students through their first year at the University. Within the context of the University's curricular and co-curricular structures, a four-week "topical excursion" (learning module) will be part of an existing general education course, Foundations of Inquiry (FOI), which all freshmen take during their first semester at the University. In that "topical excursion", the approach to Science/Technology/Society -- current issues in which the science, mathematics, engineering and technology play major roles -- will be combined with a more gender-related subtext -- choosing female scientists as authors, showing female scientists, engineers, and technologists at work, or raising the issue of gender bias in science research. The model exemplified in this project has the potential for replication at comparable institutions since many universities have some form of a summer orientation session for incoming freshmen and their parents, an introductory course that most freshmen take during their first year at the university, a structure for peer support, and undergraduate student advisement. Gender-role attitudes of society are widely thought to deter college age women from STEM college courses, majors, and subsequent career paths. Experiences during the transition to adulthood are particularly strong. The goal is to challenge traditional concepts and definitions of femininity and its relationship with STEM disciplines taking a "whole community" approach at this critical stage in education -- getting male and female students, their parents, student advisors, and faculty involved.